


Equilibrium

by just_kiss_already



Category: Altered Carbon (TV)
Genre: M/M, Misgendering, Mistaken Identity, Slurs, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 03:53:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14685909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_kiss_already/pseuds/just_kiss_already
Summary: During his interrogation at the hands of Dimi the Twin, Kovacs tries desperately to convince his torturer that he’s someone else. It only makes matters worse.





	Equilibrium

**Author's Note:**

> The misgendering is more from the fact that Kovacs keeps trying to convince Dimi he’s actually Ava Elliot, and Dimi decides to roll with it. 
> 
> All right this is strictly indulgent because I love seeing Kovacs cry. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I haven’t read the books.

“Who hired you to kill my brother?”

Kovacs doesn’t hear the sentence, he’s too focused on the way his torturer’s face pixelates and peels back in a shimmer of blue light, revealing a different face underneath. Earrings, scar over his right eye, too familiar. Personality frag frightens Kovacs worse than the pain; personality frag means insanity, and insanity in a construct means inventive new ways to hurt. 

Dimi’s face changes back to his current sleeve as he leans over the table, blonde hair and beard. He slaps Takeshi’s face. “Focus, Ryker! I asked a question. We can stop as soon as you tell me what I want to know.”

He tries to remember what Quell said. He is not an animal, he is an Envoy. He needs to fight the despair. Take control. But then Dimi turns and pulls another fingernail and a raw scream rips from Kovacs’ lungs, burning his throat.

“I’m not, I’m not Ryker!” he yells at Dimi’s back, struggling to reign in his galloping heart. Take control. “I’m Ava Elliot!” He thinks: hide himself. He thinks: new role. He softens his face, lets all the fear rise to the surface; his eyes well with tears. He curves his shoulders, brings them close, as if trying to cover his bare chest. Ava is a hacker, she might not have mental defenses against interrogation.

Dimi peers over his shoulder at Kovacs’ face, smiling. “So you say, but I see you here before me!” He slaps a hand on Kovacs’ chest, leaves the skin burning. “This is not the body of an Ava, I think.” 

“I, I’m cross-sleeved!” He dredges up the story he fed Anemone. “I was hired for wetwork. I get a new sleeve when it’s done, for me and Lizzie!”

The Russian’s smile slips a little and he raises his eyebrows. “Clever lie, Ryker.” He absentmindedly runs his fingers over a cut on Kovacs’ side, making him wince.

Kovacs lets a whine enter his voice. “I swear I’m not lying! Lizzie is my daughter! She worked at Jack It Off! I need, I need to find who killed her-“ Dimi’s huge, filthy hand covers Kovacs’ mouth, enveloping his entire lower face with ease. A muzzle. He leans down, getting closer, his breath hot on Kovacs’ face.

“If I believed you—a big if—why are you in this sleeve?”

The hand lifts slightly and Kovacs turns his head away, this strange intimacy making his hackles raise. “I need to do a job for someone. I don’t know his name. I was on ice-“ He struggles to remember what Vernon said, his thoughts are slippery like fish. “-for dipping. I swear to you I’m Ava Elliot.”

Dimi narrows his eyes and his face shifts again, crossing all genders and races, flipping through them almost casually before landing on the other Dimi’s face. The one with the scar. “Then explain how you were able to kill my brother at your shitty hotel.”

“The AI, the AI protected me!” Kovacs forgot about the fight at the hotel, a lot has happened since then. It’s so distant that this all seems ridiculous, all this agony for something from so long ago. But this tact seems to be working, Dimi is clearly considering it. Kovacs thinks: take control, get to the next screen. His training.

He starts to picture Quell in his mind, but is distracted when Dimi slaps him hard across the face. His head rocks so quick to the side it hurts his neck. 

“You fucking bitch,” Dimi hisses. His accent is heavier when he’s this worked up. He slaps him again, even harder, and Kovacs can’t help the gasp that escapes. “Wasting my time. My money. I will find this person that hired you and I will kill him for using this sleeve.” Kovacs steels himself for another slap, but Dimi grips his jaw instead, digging his fingertips in. “But first I will teach you a lesson.”

“Already did,” Kovacs struggles to say. “I learned my lesson-“

Dimi’s upper lip pulls back in a snarl and he licks his teeth; Kovacs flinches, startled by the predatory intensity he sees in the other man’s eyes. Dimi wasn’t this excited when he thought it was Ryker on the table, but something about it being Ava has drastically altered the parameters. “Beg me to let you go.”

Kovacs pulls the mantle of Ava on tighter, but the fear that makes his voice tremble isn’t exactly an act. “Please. Let me go.” Every scenario he sees spooling out from this moment is bad enough it makes his control slip further. 

Grinning maniacally, Dimi slides his fingers into the cut on Kovacs’ side, the one he toyed with earlier. This time he uses his fingernails to pry it open further. Kovacs can feel the blood leaking down, the pain so intense it feels like he’s being shredded by ice.

Kovacs screams. 

“Have you ever been in a man’s sleeve before?” Dimi asks, his voice reaching new levels of cheerfulness. As he moves his hand up to Kovacs’ chest, the pain settles a bit and Takeshi can think again. “I imagine not. Things are very different, no? The way you walk, the way you sit, the way you piss. All because of this here-“ He grabs Kovacs’ crotch, squeezing firmly, stealing his breath from him. “You fuck yet with this?” Another hard squeeze and tears fill Kovacs’ eyes, spilling down his temples to soak his sweaty hair. 

“No, my husband-“ Kovacs grunts.

Dimi leans down, rubbing his face against Kovacs’, sniffing him. “Easy then,” he says into his ear. “Pretend I am your husband.”

“Don’t!” Kovacs pulls as far away as he’s able in his chains. “Don’t you fucking dare!” He tells himself: delete the chains. Just fucking delete them. Take control and get to the next god damn screen. Dimi’s rubbing his hands over Kovacs’ chest, pushing his pecs in close together, rubbing his calloused thumbs over his nipples, the way one might play with a woman’s breasts. “Fuck you! Get off of me!”

Dimi laugh and says to the air, “playtime protocol.” Cold air hits Kovacs’ bare legs. His pants have been removed, deleted by the people supplying the torture equipment. If it wasn’t so terrifying, the convenience would be almost stupidly humorous. “Whoever you are, Ryker, Ava, does not matter now! I’m going to fuck you, then hurt you more, then fuck you again. Over and over.”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know!”

“Is not about information anymore, ‘Ava.’” His hand, still wet with Kovacs’ blood, pushes Takeshi’s face to the side, grinding his cheek into the table. The other hand, though, sneaks between his thighs. Kovacs yells incoherently and squeezes his legs shut, but the chains around his ankles tighten and pull them further apart. 

“Fuck you!” he snarls. “Fuck you! Get the fuck off of me!” The back of Dimi’s hand brushes his flaccid dick and Kovacs jerks away. The chains are rattling and he realizes he’s shaking.

A blunt finger prods at Kovacs’ ass before slipping in, teasing the muscle there. He can feel the ease of penetration, feels slickness, knows it must be a feature of this rape protocol. Don’t want the rapist getting injured.

Kovacs’ entire body tenses, his eyes roll wildly in his head, he tries to breathe through the invasion. 

Dimi cranes his neck so he can lick up Kovacs’ throat, against his fluttering pulse. “Does your husband know what a whore you are, Ava? Already wet for me.”

The hand is no longer holding his face down but Kovacs refuses to look at the Russian. He keeps staring at the mottled, bloody wall. His brain is racing but is empty. There’s no control, there will be no next screen. He’s an animal now, pure fight or flight, and he can do neither. 

The finger pushes in further, then a second one is added. Distantly Kovacs realizes he’s hearing the sound of Dimi undoing his pants. “I always admired this sleeve, you know? Big, fast, strong. I thought maybe I would take this sleeve some day.” He bends his fingers and touches a place inside Kovacs that makes his heart stutter. Pausing, Dimi lifts his head and considers Kovacs before bending his fingers again. This time Takeshi arches his back. His dick is hardening against his will. 

No more prep. Dimi gets on the table and shoves Kovacs’ knees out of the way, making room for himself. 

“No!” Kovacs howls.

Lifting one of Kovacs’ thighs as far the chain will allow, Dimi lines himself up.

“No! Don’t!”

With a groan, Dimi forces his cock in. 

Kovacs makes a croaking sound, his voice is trapped in his throat. Every muscle tenses like he’s being electrocuted. This sensation is strange, nightmarish, full in a way he never thought he would be. He’s never been with a man, never even considered the logistics of it. And now this body that wasn’t even his is being invaded, violated.

“What is his name?” Dimi asks as he slides deeper in. Kovacs just stares at him blankly. “Your husband? His name.”

The answer comes in starts and stops. He has to remember he’s pretending to be Ava. Has to remember who that is and the story he told. “V-Vern...on...”

Dimi grins and his face frags, a spot of blond hair here, a patch of beard there. “Call me his name.”

“Wh-“ Kovacs hisses. “What?” It’s so hard to breathe. 

Sliding his cock out part way, Dimi slams it in again, and for a minute Takeshi thinks he might pass out, hopes for it. “Call me his name, whore.”

As Kovacs opens his mouth, trying to force the words out, anything to make this end sooner, Dimi shifts his position and then he’s rubbing against that spot inside of Kovacs with every thrust. It’s intense, almost too much, and Kovacs pants, his cock hardening.

Leaning down over him, Dimi’s stomach rubs against Kovacs’ dick and Takeshi finds his hips lifting in rhythm. “Feels good? Maybe you want to say my name instead.”

“F-fuck you,” Kovacs spits, even as his own precome slicks Dimi’s skin, lessens the friction in favor of wet heat. Biting his lip to keep from moaning, Kovacs tries to look away, but Dimi’s bear paw of a hand grabs his face and squeezes.

“Look at me or I break your jaw.”

Kovacs stares at Dimi, it’s still the wrong face, it’s the face of the dead one. Fingers slip into his mouth and he doesn’t fight it, lets them rest heavy and calloused on his tongue. They taste metallic. Rusty iron. 

Pulling out, Dimi catches his breath for a minute, working his index and middle finger deeper into Kovacs’ mouth, making him gag. After a minute, he wraps that hand around Takeshi’s dick and starts pumping.

“Stop,” Kovacs whispers even as he thrusts up into the Russian’s hand. It’s such a stark difference from the agony before, it’s not just a return to baseline. The pain has all temporarily vanished in favor of the burning spreading through his body, the urgent need filling him. 

Dimi licks and kisses Kovacs’ chest, teases his nipple with his tongue before lapping at a cut, the heat and salt of the saliva a bright spark to act as counterpoint to the slow heat growing his guts. 

“Beg me,” Dimi whispers, breath tickling wet skin.

Kovacs bites his lip again in silent protest, even as Dimi slides his cock back into Kovacs, shifting subtly until he finds that agonizing spot. Kovacs moans, can’t help himself. “Ss-... stop,” he stutters as his orgasm starts to crest. “No-!”

He comes forcefully, it feels endless, he’s floating on the high and he wants to wrap his arms around—

When Dimi grunts in his ear, Kovacs comes back to reality. He feels the Russian filling him, feels it dribble out as he pulls away and climbs off of the table.

“Now,” Dimi announces after fixing his pants. “Next phase, yes?” Kovacs shakes his head but it’s weak, he’s weak. He doesn’t want to do this anymore. Dimi tsks and leans over, stroking Kovacs’ hair. “Don’t give up yet, ‘Ava.’ I have plans to make new holes and fuck you in them.”


End file.
